Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Sat 10 Dec
Since emerging in Cardiff around the start of this decade, Islet fairly quickly mutated into something singular around these parts. Riotous, percussion-heavy gigs that featured a free-roaming approach to both genre and audience interaction earned them a heavyweight live rep, while the handful of albums and EPs mixed the swirling junkshop noise with many layers of dreamy, exploratory beauty. It’s a wandering approach that’s taken them to real life excursions in Japan, SXSW and Primavera, while maintaining a leaderless independence that puts them closer to autonomous art collective than anything else.
Which is all a wordy way of saying: it’s good to have them back. Self-released and self-produced in the current Islet HQ of rural mid-Wales, new EP Liquid Half Moon is their best material yet: five songs of keyboard shimmer and gently rippling guitar that create an almost tropical warmth, with Emma’s loved-up, cooing vocals pushing things towards an overriding, tentative positivity. Like all great bands, they only sound like themselves, and it’ll be a trip to see new songs blending with old at this gig.
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Xmas presents you actually want as supports too: bleak and beautiful electronica from ACCÜ; a one-off improv percussion group called 12 Drummers Drumming, and between all of them fellow Welsh champ Cate Le Bon, and her judicious DJ choices.
Tickets: £10/£20 vinyl and ticket bundle. Info: 029 2023 2199